Fresh bread after 3 years

[TamilNet, Saturday, 05 September 1998, 13:30 GMT]Freshly baked bread will be available in Vadamaradchi today for the first time in three years, though there will not be sufficient loaves to meet demand.

The SLA this week permitted the supply of wheat flour to a bakery at Nagarkoil to make 300 lbs of bread daily.

But a source at the Divisional Secretary's office said that the daily requirement in Vadamaradchi is at least 4000 lbs of bread.

The supply of flour to more than ten villages in Vadamaradchi east on the south-eastern coast of Jaffna was banned in early 1996 when the SLA brought most of the peninsula under it's control.

The army, in an attempt to deny supplies to the Liberation Tigers, who had been active in the villages, banned the supply of flour to bakeries in the Vadamaradchi area.

Families were permitted to take only a limited quantity of wheat flour.

Meanwhile, the SLA has recently opened stalls selling goods at prices lower that what currently obtains in the Jaffna market at the Selva Sannithy Murugan temple in Thondamanar, said sources in Vadamaradchi. The annual temple festival is currently in progress there.

Checkpoints at the Vallai junction have been increased to cope with the large number devotees who are flocking to the festival from other parts of Jaffna, said sources.